Centrifugal honey extractors are the subject of a number of U.S. patents dating back at least to the early 1920's. A review of this prior art reveals a number of extractors which feature the arranging of the comb frames along arcuately spaced radial paths around a central shaft within a container.
Further, some of the extractors include hinge-like devices or hinged baskets for holding the comb. The hinging mechanism in these extractors permits the rotation or other change in position of the honeycomb according to the theory that changing the position, and thus changing the application of centrifugal force against the comb, will effect a more complete extraction of the honey.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,730,593 to H. Root discloses a small size, power driven extracting apparatus which teaches the radial placement of the comb frames around a central shaft. In the Root patent the frames are placed securely in a regular position around the shaft and their position does not change during the extracting process.
A second U.S. patent to Root, U.S. Pat. No. 1,791,605, discloses a radial honey extractor of relatively large capacity with the comb frames held in the radial position by means of studs secured to the inside of the inner basket. Alternatively, Root teaches the use of radial notches within this basket to engage and hold the end bars of each frame. The use of this inner basket, however, may create problems for the hobbyist or small operator in that a portion of the honey may not get through the basket to the outer container, thereby necessitating the extra chore of manually removing honey from the basket along with that collected in the container. Additionally, the frame supports within the basket may retain honey and be difficult and time consuming to clean.
Both of the Root patents involve rather intricate designs and placement of the honeycomb frames require considerable manipulation of the supporting mechanism. Most of the other prior art discloses extractors designed for much larger processors and which are inapplicable to the hobbyist or small operater. The other smaller extractors (U.S. Pat. No. 3,007,255 to Mandrapa, for example) in the prior art generally feature a frame supporting mechanism which require a certain amount of assembly to load and altering of the position of the frames during extraction. Further such frames utilize multiple parts which are somewhat difficult to clean and if the parts are movable can malfunction.
To the inventor's knowledge there is not a small capacity centrifugal honey extractor having a frame supporting mechanism of such few movable parts or components and which is easy to manipulate.